Prevalence and phylogenetic analysis of the current porcine circovirus 2 genotypes after implementation of widespread vaccination programmes in the USA

Abstract

To determine the prevalence of porcine circovirus 2 (PCV2) genotypes in the USA during 2010–2011, 5 years after widespread PCV2 vaccination, serum samples from clinically normal pigs that were PCV2 vaccinated (n = 1177), non-vaccinated (n = 378) or of unknown vaccination status (n = 120), and 100 lung samples from pigs diagnosed with PCV-associated disease (PCVAD) were tested. The presence of PCV2, PCV1, PCV1-2a and porcine parvovirus (PPV) DNA was determined by PCR. Determination of the PCV2 genotype was done by differential PCR and sequencing. The prevalence of PCV2a and PCV2b in serum samples was 7.7 % (129/1675) and 8.4 % (141/1675), respectively. PCV2a DNA was only detected in non-vaccinated pigs. For the 100 PCVAD pigs, the prevalence of PCV2a and PCV2b in lung tissues was 13.0 and 65.0 %, respectively. Partial PCV2 ORF2 sequences (9–563 nt) were obtained from 85 PCV2 DNA-positive samples (24 normal pigs and 61 PCVAD cases). Phylogenetic analysis revealed that 12.9 % (11/85) of the sequences belonged to the 2E clade and the PCV2a genotype and 87.1 % (74/85) belonged to the 1B clade and the PCV2b genotype. The alignment of putative PCV2 capsid amino acid sequences revealed possible recombination or mutation between PCV2a and PCV2b genotypes. Chimeric PCV1-2a was not detected in any of the samples and the prevalence rates of PCV1 and PPV were low. Our results suggest PCV2b is more prevalent than PCV2a in PCVAD cases and in vaccinated herds PCV2b circulation is common. The data generated in this study provide novel information on the distribution of PCV2 genotypes in vaccinated pig populations.